Hey everyone, I found this site, and really enjoy the positive feedback everyone gives. I have a question though and would like help. I am just starting to get off my feet on game design. I have written a design document, and I have a programmer who gaining experience (we plan on using game salad). I also have an artist and sound design set up.
My problem is that it feels overwhelming to try to get a game going with an artist. Does anyone have any advice on animation that would help a beginner designer? I am always willing to learn new things. I go to a small college and in my spare time I work on this idea I have and just need help for the next step after the design doc. Any advice at all will be greatly appreciated!

If it's 2D art, then animation is sprite by sprite (or frame by frame). I think a good was to do it is to draw the sketches for each frame first, and then continue with drawing the actual detail, but it's all about preferences.
If it's 3D art, then you can use bones and stuff.
Note that you can also use some bone tool for 2D (I believe Adobe Flash has the feature), but I don't know of any example where that has turned out be artistically pleasing.

I am always willing to learn new things. I go to a small college and in my spare time I work on this idea I have and just need help for the next step after the design doc. Any advice at all will be greatly appreciated!

My first advice is, don't start at the top.

That is, i.e. don't target the next big MMORPG with superb visuals and supreme sandbox gameplay. The reason is, that you will most likely tone your features down over time, which is a very frustrating, expensive (you will throw a lot of work over board) and long experience (your first team members will drop out when there's no progress or motivation).

Therefore start at the bottom (i.e.: I will make a roguelike/ascii single player rpg) and try to idenify parts where you can improve the design/visuals immediatly using your own skills or some skills of your team members. This has the advantage, that you gain experience while going along, experience what it needs to archieve even small goals, and got a major motivation boost after completion of the first goals.

Therefore my second advice is, think about the lowest possible implementation of your basic game idea (reduces content, reduces features) and prototype it (few month), make a retrospective of your development process (what worked, what went wrong), plan your next iteration and start over again (more formal: SCRUM).

Thank you so much for your advice. I have no interest in making an MMORPG, in fact I want to try to make an iPhone game for starters. I like the idea of making a prototype and then retrospective of what worked and didn't. And the art we want to use is 2D art. It just seems difficult to help artists make frame by frame, due to the expansive need for different sprite combinations. I really appreciate the advice!